


so fork-tunate to meet you

by littlehuang (boyfrendery)



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inanimate Objects, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Picnics, Soulmates, except yuta! he is human, they're all literal pieces of cutlery or tableware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfrendery/pseuds/littlehuang
Summary: Everyone here is paired off: knife and cutting board, coffee mug and sugar bowl, fork and spoon. And while Lucas doesn’tneedto be part of a set—he’s fully functional and whole on his own—he wouldn’t mind that companionship, to have someone to call his.(Lucas is a fork who hopes to meet his soulmate. Renjun is the teaspoon he's been waiting for.)
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 79
Kudos: 145
Collections: Challenge #3 — soulmates





	so fork-tunate to meet you

**Author's Note:**

> special thanks to my [kaia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rare_cat_meme/profile) and [izzy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbeamjd/profile) for reading over my work + everyone who's seen me talk nonsensically about cutlery for the past two weeks—you know who you are. thank you ♡ 

Lucas is inside a picnic basket. This is the first thing he realizes when he wakes up.

He doesn’t remember how he got here, when Yuta wrapped him up in a cloth napkin—he should’ve noticed this, considering he’s not in the usual paper towel blanket that he opts for—nor when Yuta even got a picnic basket. He hasn’t ever seen Yuta prepare picnic food before.

(Belatedly, Lucas realizes he doesn’t know what constitutes picnic food. He’s never been on a picnic.)

Around him he can see the sun streaking through the brown wicker, light catching in between the crevices of the woven basket. Next to him, Sungchan and Jisung are swaddled together, the pair of chopsticks snoozing quietly in their cloth. On Lucas’ other side is a small bottle of wine, a bubbly champagne with a gold-foiled top and a red seal. Taeil and Johnny must be here, too, then; Lucas peers over the end of his handle and spots the two wine glasses cradled in a generous blanket of napkins. 

His friends look peaceful like this, comfortable with their partners. Cozy. Worry-free. He’s always wondered what it’d be like to have a partner, knowing that they’d always be with you. He doesn’t have one but—but he thinks _he_ would be a great partner. If he had one. 

In fact, Lucas considers himself to be a bit of a catch. His frame is long and slim, extending into three pointed prongs at one end of his body, a perfectly carved handle on the other. He’s young, so his finish is still a shiny, polished silver that sparkles when held under the light. Sure, he may be standard or plain in the eyes of a human—the most unique point of his body is the heart-shaped engraving etched along the front of his handle, running up the perimeter of his body—and, yes, he’s built from the same cut and material as all the others like him, but Lucas is sure of himself, taking pride in the certainty of his purpose: the strength he wields to pierce and slice with ease, able to pick up even the flimsiest of foods.

This is all to say that by every measure possible, Lucas is a great fork. A happy one, too. But being great on his own doesn’t feel like enough sometimes—at least not in the kitchen he lives in.

There, everyone is paired off: knife and cutting board, coffee mug and sugar bowl, fork and spoon. Yuta—the human of the apartment—lives alone with his dog, and by the sheen of the faucet and the excited humming of the refrigerator, Lucas thinks that the human hasn’t lived there very long. Everything in the kitchen is still factory-new, no tell-tale signs of aging or tarnish from what he’s seen, and slowly Yuta has built a collection of tableware and appliances to fill his kitchen. Each time he brings something new home, it comes as a pair.

Some are inseparable couples, like Donghyuck and Yangyang. Lucas had never seen anything like them before: two large metal attachments, identical in shape, that lock into a white-handled device. When Yuta plugged their cord into the wall socket and flicked on the device they whirred to life, echoing a loud grating sound that reverberated across the kitchen. Together they combined the ingredients inside the mixing bowl and made a mess of the kitchen in the process, flour flying into the air and onto Yuta’s apron.

(After that incident, Lucas decided that he wouldn't try to be friends with them. At least not while they’re plugged in. Hand mixers are too noisy, too messy.

Yuta eventually got over his baking phase, though. He doesn’t see Donghyuck and Yangyang as much anymore.)

Other pairs meet on the table, or in the cupboard, or sit together on the marble countertop. That’s how Doyoung and Taeyong met. When Doyoung isn’t busy boiling water, the kettle stays close to Taeyong, the two of them ready whenever Yuta has a craving for chamomile.

(“My husband is a teapot-for-one,” Doyoung explained the time Yuta accidentally left Lucas out on the counter after cleaning him. Lucas spent a long evening in the dark, chatting away with all the different appliances that sit next to the drying rack.

On the other end of the counter, Jaehyun—a _chasen_ , some sort of bamboo whisk—laughed. His partner Winwin is a fancy bowl called a _chawan,_ although he looks like a normal bowl to Lucas, and together the duo is used to make a special, grassy-smelling powdered tea. “He calls Taeyong his _tae_ pot.”

Doyoung didn’t have any water inside him, but Lucas swore he saw steam rise out of his spout. An angry kettle is a scary sight.)

Unlike the other utensils living in Yuta’s cutlery drawer, Lucas didn’t always live there. Yuta brought him home from work—stole him from his office’s kitchen, which in itself was an amalgamation of cheap kitchenware and forgotten utensils anyway—and decided to keep him in his apartment’s kitchen ever since. Lucas didn’t come as part of a matching set, and while he knows he doesn’t _need_ to be paired off—he’s fully functional and whole on his own—he _also_ wouldn’t mind having that companionship, to have someone to call his.

And for some reason, humans seem to be aware of it as well. Yuta is in tune with how destiny has paired off all his kitchen supplies: he reaches out for the same couples every time, and when they’re all cleaned up after a meal, he’ll always, _always_ put his utensils away together, too, tucking them in the same compartment of the drawer. Something innate keeps them together, a connection beyond what words can describe.

 _Soulmates_. That’s what Mark called them.

“I think we’ve all got one,” the fork commented one occasion while they were drying on the dish rack. “For utensils like us, it’s not like your soulmate is your ‘missing half’ or something. But they… I don’t know how to describe it. We work great together and being with him feels like home.”

(Not that Mark had anything to worry about. He was brought into this kitchen with a soulmate already: him and Xiaojun, fork and spoon both engraved with lions on the front of their handles.)

So Lucas has been patient, waiting to meet the silverware of his dreams. A nice butter knife, perhaps, with chiseled edges and a smooth blade, or maybe a round soup spoon, perfect in shape and depth. Every time he’s set out on the table or grabbed for a meal in front of the TV, he hopes that _this_ meal—this lunch, or dinner, or midnight snack—will be different, that he’ll have another utensil brought along with him, lying on the placemat together.

Suddenly, the picnic basket thuds, and Lucas rolls off the plastic tupperware he’s resting on and falls down the side, pressed in the space between the container and the wall of the basket.

The napkin around him cushions his fall but he feels the clink of something… hard, and metallic? Beneath him, someone covered in a layer of napkin. The utensil is flipped upside down and the edge of their handle nudges the base of Lucas’ neck.

“Chenle? Is that you?” Lucas asks. It’d be odd to see the fork here without Jeno. Lucas can’t imagine that Yuta would need two forks _and_ a steak knife for a picnic.

“I’m not—I’m not Chenle,” the utensil responds. Definitely a spoon by the timbre of their voice: bright, clear, a little higher pitched on some notes. “My name’s Renjun.”

Huh. Lucas has seen every spoon in Yuta’s kitchen—even the measuring spoon sisters!—but he can’t recall any named Renjun.

“I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Lucas. Sorry for, uh.” Lucas feels his prongs heat up under the sun. “For falling on you. Cross my tines, I didn’t mean it.”

Renjun laughs, echoing off his bowl. “It’s—it’s fine, Lucas. It didn’t hurt too much. I don’t actually… know where I am? Are we in a kitchen, or a drawer? I haven’t been wrapped in a napkin in so long.”

“No, no. We’re in a basket,” he replies. “I think we’re going to a picnic.”

“Oh! I love those!” Renjun’s voice perks up, cheery. “My humans used to take me on those all the time. The food they bring, it’s so fascinating…”

  
  
  
  


Renjun, Lucas learns, is a teaspoon. He doesn’t belong to Yuta’s kitchen—at least, not originally.

Renjun came from a place called “the thrift store.” Lucas has no idea what that is. Apparently it’s where Yuta picked up the picnic basket.

But _before_ the thrift store, before Yuta took home the picnic basket, Renjun lived in the kitchen of a human family.

“I lived there for… for forever, in the drawer, before I was forgotten in the picnic basket.” Renjun sighs, and Lucas feels the pain like being stabbed with a knife. He understands that feeling. “The little humans— _children_ I think they’re called?—would bring me to school and use me to eat pudding. They must be adult-sized now.”

“I don’t think Yuta eats pudding,” Lucas replies. “I’ve never seen pudding before. Can humans eat it with a fork?”

Renjun giggles. “They _could._ I mean, I’ve seen the little ones try to, but the pudding would slip right through your prongs. It would take forever for the humans to eat it.”

“Hmm,” Lucas says, mulling over it. “Maybe they should use forks then. Make the meal last longer.”

They talk until the lid of the picnic basket opens up and Yuta empties out the contents inside. There’s another human here; Lucas recognizes him as Hansol, who, he theorizes, is _Yuta’s_ soulmate, if the frequency by which he sees Hansol in the kitchen is any indicator.

Yuta places Lucas on the picnic blanket, then places Renjun next to him. He unwraps both of them from their napkins. 

“Huh,” Yuta says, looking down at them. “I didn’t… oh well.” He looks up at Hansol. “I brought a spoon by accident instead of two forks. Do you mind eating your cake with a spoon?”

“Not at all.”

One of them opens the champagne with a loud pop, pouring the fizzy liquid into the wine glasses. Some of it spills onto the blanket and droplets fall on Lucas’ handle but he isn’t paying attention to anyone except the teaspoon next to him.

They’re parked under the shade of a large tree, the sun still sifting through the leaves in scattered streaks. Here, Lucas has a full view of what Renjun looks like: he’s two-thirds the length of Lucas, the tip of his bowl resting just above the root of Lucas’ prongs. He’s made of simple silver, no tarnish or scratches, the delicate neck of his body extending toward his short handle, and he’s… really quite petite. Sunlight falls onto his body, reflecting off the silver surface. 

A small cake sits in the center of the picnic blanket. Yuta picks up Lucas by the handle. Hansol does the same with Renjun. In unison, the two humans dip them into the cake and scoop out a piece.

( _Chocolate mousse_ , he recognizes immediately by the moisture and viscosity. Lucas wonders if pudding feels like this.)

They pause. Raise their glasses—and their utensils—in the air. Lucas fully expects them to cheers with their glasses (it’s the natural thing to do) but to his great surprise, they clink their utensils together instead.

Lucas’ prongs barely, _barely_ touch Renjun’s bowl, but even the briefest contact rattles something deep in his core, shooting from the tip of his tines down his neck, all the way to the base of his handle.

The humans eat together. Laughing, talking; Yuta always looks happiest when he eats with Hansol. Sometimes they reach for another piece of cake at the same time and the side of Renjun’s bowl bumps into Lucas’ handle, or Lucas’ prong pokes Renjun’s neck but neither of them mind. It’s all sweet, all good. Lucas’ feels as light and bubbly as their glasses of champagne, sparkling with bliss. Maybe this is the best meal Lucas has ever been part of.

And when the cake is all gone and the bottle is empty, when Hansol helps Yuta clean up his blanket, Lucas is wrapped up in the same cloth as Renjun. He doesn’t know if it’s a mistake or on purpose.

Whatever it is, Renjun feels it, too. The back of his bowl fits snug against the curve of Lucas’ body, their handles back-to-back.

He didn’t notice it earlier but now it’s hard to ignore: the back of Renjun’s handle isn’t smooth. Twin lines run along the perimeter of his backside, curving down toward the base of his handle, meeting to make a heart shape.

“Hey, Renjun,” Lucas whispers.

“Mmmm.”

“Guess what?”

“What?” Renjun asks, slightly concerned.

“We’re _spooning_.”

Renjun laughs again and for now, they’re alright like this. They’ll have to talk about it when they get back home, back to the kitchen cutlery drawer, clarify if Lucas’ hunch about them is true. He knows this is something significant, this connection. It’s no mere coincidence.

For now, though, he uses all of his senses to relish in the comfort of this closeness. Lucas cozies himself against the back of Renjun’s neck, in tune with the metal close to him, feeling so fortunate to have met his soulmate.

**Author's Note:**

> “tines” are another name for a fork’s prongs and the “root” is the space between each tine where the metal connects. the neck of fork or spoon is the thin part between the handle and the head of the utensil.
> 
> the premise of this fic was originally a prompt from the [lucas fic fest](https://twitter.com/lucasficfest/status/1218731139583660032?s=21) prompt archive :) i didn't get a chance to mention every member in the story—you can find a thread of all the soulmates [here](https://twitter.com/boyfrendery/status/1334898145113886724?s=20)! thank you for reading
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/boyfrendery) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/boyfrendery)


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